Ghost Ship defense alleges fire was arson

Witness heard ‘pops,’ saw men near origin of blaze, attorney says

OAKLAND >> Before the Ghost Ship fire broke out, Darold Leite heard bottles breaking. Then about seven men ran out of the warehouse side door right past him. As a fire began to engulf the building, Sharon Evans was at a nearby taco truck when she saw a similar group of men.

“The way we put the wood there, they’re never getting out,” Evans heard the men say, according to her account to defense attorneys.

Absent an official cause of the deadly warehouse blaze, defense attorneys have seized on this group of mystery men as the core of their case that warehouse tenants Derick Almena and Max Harris are innocent of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 36 people in the Ghost Ship fire. Their theory: The fire was intentionally set, and the true culprits are not on trial.

Almena, 49, and Harris, 29, each are charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the Dec. 2, 2016, blaze that tore through a dance party at the artist collective.

In opening statements in the criminal trial on Tuesday and Wednesday, attorneys Tony Serra and Curtis Briggs, who represents Harris, said they plan to call both Leite and Evans and a third witness to testify and place the alleged arsonists near the origin of the fire, before flames traveled from the back of the first floor to the second floor, trapping the partygoers.

Briggs and Serra say evidence and eyewitness accounts also show fire investigators did not seriously consider arson as a cause, even though the thick smoke and fast-moving nature of the fire suggests it may be. And because the cause was not determined, even prosecutors and experts cannot rule out arson or any other possible cause.

In the theatrical style he’s known for,

Serra described what Leite says he heard: “Pop, pop, pop, pop.”

Like “bottles of gasoline,” Serra said on Wednesday. “They threw them and lit them and left. My client had nothing to do with that.”

Serra’s theory is shared by Briggs, who promised jurors the same evidence in his opening remarks on Tuesday. Opening statements in the trial of Almena and Harris concluded Wednesday, and the prosecution is scheduled to call its first witness on Monday in what is expected to be a trial lasting several weeks, if not months.

Leite, a friend of Almena’s,

lived in the vacant lot next to the Ghost Ship. Evans had no connection to the warehouse converted into living spaces and was heading to the taco truck behind the warehouse as the fire broke out. A third witness, Ghost Ship resident Bob Mule, is expected to testify that he saw the men in the northwest corner of the building where the fire originated, and he did not recognize them.

Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Casey Bates, in his opening statement, did not spend much time on the fire’s cause but said investigators were thorough in sifting through piles of debris. Bates alleges Harris and Almena are criminally liable for the fire because partygoers had no time or way to escape

the flames. The warehouse was a maze of pianos, organs and RVs, void of extinguishers, adequate exits and smoke alarms.

While the prosecution appears poised to present evidence that the building was dangerous, not up to building codes and zoned for commercial use only, the defense paints a rosier picture of a beautiful art space.

Serra told jurors he is going to bring them inside the mind of his client during Almena’s testimony, “to walk in (his) shoes,” “feel what he felt” and “see what he saw.”

“It was my client’s vision,” Serra said in court. “It was not unsafe. We are going to show it was not a firetrap in every way we can.”

The attorney placed blame on police, firefighters, child protective services

employees and sheriff’s deputies who entered the 31st Avenue warehouse at one time or another and did not shut it down.

If officials found it unsafe, they would have redtagged the building, and there would be no need for a trial, Serra argued. He told jurors that firefighters came inside during a party two years before the fire. A fire investigator responding to a 2014 arson scorching the warehouse’s exterior went inside, as did police officers who went upstairs and onto the roof to save a man threatening to jump on Oct. 29, 2016, about a month before the deadly blaze.

In another instance, law enforcement officials responded to a dispute between Almena and tenant Shelley Mack, whom Almena

tried to evict. Authorities said Mack has “squatters rights,” Serra said.

“They told Derick she has a right to be here,” Serra said. “That in his mind once again confirmed what he was doing was OK.”

He said Almena did the best he could within his means to ensure safety at Ghost Ship, but there’s “nothing my client could do to prevent arson.” He added, “Code violations have nothing to do with the arson fire.”

The attorneys also implied that the men seen by witnesses may have set the fire on behalf of the owner of the body shop next door. Almena and the neighbor had a longstanding feud over electrical issues and frequent outages, Serra said. Power to the warehouse

flowed from the body shop.

Jurors return Monday with a new member. At the beginning of Wednesday’s session, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson said that a juror had been removed. She did not give a reason but asked the jury to “please don’t speculate why.”

A day earlier and without the jury present, the judge warned the courtroom that someone had attempted to communicate with a juror. Neither Thompson nor attorneys openly discussed the issue, but the judge threatened to close the trial to the public and media if there is any further communication with jurors.